Turn to the book of Acts chapter 13. Acts chapter 13. I want to review last Sunday's messages and then just give you a couple more points here. We're talking about David. Last Sunday was Father's Day and so I wanted to bring messages, especially for men, on the subject of what made David different. What made David different? And I'd like to conclude that, but I wanna review last week's points and then just give you two more points at the end here about David. And there could be a lot more. David is certainly a character worth studying. He's one of the most impressive human beings that has ever walked the earth. And his name is found 968 times in the Bible, more than any other name in the Bible. Even more than the name of Jesus, you will find the name David. in almost a thousand verses. God wants us to study him. God has laid his life out for us plainly more than anybody else's life in the Old Testament and so study David. There's many ways he's a type of Christ and other times he's just a human being who's frail and has fears and falls and But there's there's so many things that are impressive about him and what made him different I think it's this statement here in Acts 13 22 in Acts 13 22 God said these words and it's only recorded in the New Testament But it says I have found David the son of Jesse a man after mine own heart Which shall fulfill all my will When God says something about it is it is honest God never exaggerates like we do. God never lies. He never stretches the truth. He said he found something in a man who was the son of Jesse. His name was David. And that he was a man after mine own heart. And because of those things, all the other things I mentioned this morning is the reason why he was different. I want to encourage you to be different. I want to encourage myself to be different. Let's not just be like the world. But as we study David, let us say, God, I need your help, but make me like that. But David knew God had a heart and he wanted to find out what was in it. He didn't just want to know God in a superficial doctrinal way. Yeah, I believe in God, that kind of a thing. He wanted to get so intimate and so personal with God, he said, if God has a heart, I want to know what's in his heart. that's what drove him in his life and as a result in verse 36 it says this for David after he had served his generation by the will of God verse 22 said a man after mine own heart which shall fulfill all my will and then verse 36 after he had served his generation by the will of God. And so in looking into the heart of God, he found the will of God and then he used the will of God to serve his generation. And so he didn't live for himself. His life wasn't about himself and all the things he could accumulate or enjoy or all the pleasures he could pack into one life from the womb to the tomb. But rather he said, what can I do for my generation? How can I serve others? And he also prepared with all of his might, the scripture says, for the next generation after he died. Now folks, that's different. We've already seen two things this morning that are different about him. Very few people want to look into the heart of God. Most people want God to keep his distance. Thank you God, thank you for saving me, but I'll take it from here. You stay over there. but he wanted to see into the heart of God. That's different. He served his generation by the will of God. That's different. God has a will for every one of our lives, something very, very special that only we can fulfill. Nobody can do it for you or take your place or my place. But when we find the will of God, we'll find it's not about ourselves. It's about serving our fellow man, ministering to them, trying to reach their souls and using our gifts to help them and benefit them. There were some things by introduction before we went back to the book of 1st Samuel and started digging into 1st and 2nd Samuel. The next thing we saw about David was he had a cause. That's different. A lot of people don't have a cause. If you interviewed people and said, what's your cause? Some of them won't have a cause. They just want to exist. I want to get up tomorrow. I want to eat my breakfast. I want to go to work and do my job and come home and sit on the couch and read the paper and watch TV and have a drink and do the next thing the next day and weeks and months and years and so on. That's it. They just exist. David had a cause. His cause was God. His cause was Israel, and this, of course, was taken from 1 Samuel 17. Again, by way of review, and when he had a cause in that chapter, that was his big fight with Goliath, almost everybody knows that story. He is described in verse 56 of that chapter as being a stripling. Being a stripling, that's a young man who's in his youth, probably his later teen years. And by the time he was a teenager, he had a cause. He knew why he existed. He found the most important cause that he could attach himself to. And he lived for that cause all of his life from his youth. And that cause was God. And that cause was Israel. And he would end up becoming the king of Israel. And would serve God and serve that cause of Israel for all of his days. And I want to encourage you in your youth. Now, it's never too late. To find a cause but the greatest cause on earth is to win souls to Christ and to help Build the kingdom of God. That's the greatest cause I Mean, I'm thankful. I met a fellow just a few weeks ago in Perrysburg in the in the parking lot I was out working on the grass and the church plant and he drove in and and and he he was just burdened to the point of tears over the fact that there's only 14 red wolves left on earth and I mean, I wish we would see some tears for some souls once in a while. We got such dry eyes and empty altars these days and lukewarmness and apathy and indifference. This guy had tears because there's 14 red wolves left on earth. Well, at least the guy has a cause. But David had a cause that made him different. And nobody would fight Goliath for 40 days. He was cursing God and cursing Israel and challenging someone to come down to the valley and fight him. And David shows up and says, who is this guy? Who does he think he is? And David's brother, older brother Eliab, opposed him and says, I know the pride and the naughtiness of your heart. David just turned his back on his brother and turned to others and said, what's going on here? Why isn't anybody fighting this? He turned his back on his older brother, his family. And that's when you know you have a cause, when you're willing to walk away from your family for it because it's so important. David had a cause. David had a friend. His friend was Jonathan. That is different. That is different. That's not weird. But it is different that a man would have another man as a friend and it says their souls were knit together in love. He said, Jonathan's love for him surpassed the love of women. And he had a friend who was so intimate with him, their souls were knit together. Get that clearly now because the soul is referring to the spiritual part of our being, not the physical. You know, I know this is gay pride month and gay pride week and all that kind of stuff. And by the way, pride's the worst sin in the book. I don't care what you're proud of, it's wrong. But this was a man who had another friend who was so intimate spiritually. It's like the Cambridge Seven, maybe, that went off to To, where'd they go, India, China? I forgot what it was. C.T. Studd and his six buddies from Cambridge University, their souls were knit together, and as seven single men, they went and just moved mountains for God on the mission field. There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, God says in the Proverbs, and there's somebody, and we have really made this thing about friendship plastic and surface, and you know, I got 859 friends on Facebook. Yeah, but do you have one that you could talk to intimately and say, hey, I need your help. I need your prayers. I am really struggling. Is there somebody you could confide in that personally and you know that they would go to the grave with that information and never repeat it to another person, that they would love you, that they would smite you? The Bible says a friend smites his brother and the brother considers it a kindness. Thanks for straightening me out. Your best friend is the one who makes you a better person. Your best friend is the one that makes you a better Christian, not the one who drags you down into the world or introduces you to sin or talks about the pastor of the church behind their back or tears down authority tears down the Bible and says, no, that's not your best friend. Your best friend is the one that when he's done with you, he's made you a better Christian. He's helped you become more intimate in your relationship with the Lord. He had a friend. That's different. Most of us are very shallow. We got this, you know, shield around us. Don't get too close. Stay at least this far away. Don't ask me how I'm doing. I'm fine. And it's fake. Do you have anyone you can be honest with? And say, man, I'm hurting so bad I can't stand it. Would you pray for me? David had restraint. Two times he had an opportunity to kill his worst enemy, Saul, King Saul. And two times he restrained himself and said, you know, I'm going to just leave that in God's hands. That's not my business. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I will repay. How do we treat our enemies? David had restraint. David put up with difficult people. I don't know what point this is. This is review. There were these three nephews he had, Joab, Asahel, and Abishai, who were the sons of Zeruiah. Zeruiah was his sister. He had six older brothers and one sister. Her name was Zeruiah. She had three boys, Joab, Asahel, and Abishai. And he said this about them. They were monsters. They were military guys. So was David. But David was well-balanced. David was an expert at the harp. David wrote psalms. He wrote 73 psalms. In the psalm book, who knows how many others he wrote. He was a very balanced man. He was a military man. He once killed a bear with his bare hands when he was a teenager. He killed a lion. He killed Goliath. He just fought the battles of God and just slaughtered the Philistines. And boy, he was a man's man. But he was a man after God's own heart, and God is a man of war. He's not some pacifist, old gray-haired guy on the throne with a long beard, patting people on the head and giving candy out to little kids. That's not God. And yet David said to those three guys, ye sons of Zeruiah, be too hard for me. Imagine that. And several other times he rebuked them because they were so hard and they would shed the blood of innocent people when it wasn't times of war. You be too hard for me. But he kept them around. And Joab became the captain of the host, which was 1.3 million men. Asahel became a captain of 24,000 men. Try that. Abishai became a great soldier. We'll see him in one of today's stories here in just a few minutes. But even though these men were too hard for him and these nephews of his He never got along with them. They were difficult all of his life. All of his life they were difficult to get along with. And his reign was 40 years. At the end of 40 years, Joab and Abishai were still around. Asahel had been murdered. But he kept them around. You know why? He needed them. And he showed restraint towards those that were difficult to get along with because he knew he needed them. And if we're ever going to be good Christians and good church members, we're going to have to realize that there are going to be people in every church that are hard to get along with. They're difficult. They're just difficult people. But sometimes they have talents and gifts that are needed in the body of Christ. And rather than driving them out because they make our life uncomfortable, we should try to, as the scripture says, forbear them in love. Ephesians 4, verse 2. and lowliness of mind, meekness, forbearing one another in love. Putting up with one another is what that means. We've got to put up with people if we're going to be good Christians. If we're going to be church members, good church members, we've got to put up with people that might just rub us the wrong way. I don't know why that is. You know it's true. But there are some people whose personality just rubs you the wrong way. And others you get along with fine, and it would be nice to just kind of have a church where you got along with everybody fine, but that's not reality. And no matter where you go, whatever church you go, some people hop from one church to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next, until somebody offends them. I'm not coming here anymore. Well, David was different. David showed restraint towards those he couldn't get along with because he recognized their contribution, in his case, to the kingdom of God, and he kept them around so they could work. He showed restraint. He got over bitterness. That's another thing. When his buddy Uzzah was killed by God for putting his hand up on the ark, when the ark was falling over, And Uzzah thought he'd do God a favor, and he tried to hold the ark up, and God smote Uzzah dead. Uzzah was one of David's friends, and David got bitter towards God. It displeased him. And once in a while, us with our finite little minds think God did something wrong. Amen? Sometimes we think that. We think God made his first mistake. God shouldn't have done that. Aren't thou here to call my sin? Remember that lady with the prophet when her little boy died? I prayed to God, give me a boy and now you kill him. And you know, there's times where even the best of people start to question God. And sometimes if you're not careful, you'll get bitter at God. But David got over his in a hurry. That's different. He didn't hold on to it for years and decades. He just finally said, you know, we were wrong. I was wrong. I'm the king. We were moving the ark the wrong way. We had it on a cart. Pulled by a bunch of cows. That's how the Philistines moved it. God said the Levites are supposed to stick a pole through the rings on the four corners and get it on their shoulders and carry it that way. And what was the distance? Somebody here figured out the distance. What was it? Kel, you and I last week, when they moved the ark in Joshua's day, they stayed behind. How far was it? We just figured. 3,000 yards. All right, that's 10 football fields. No, it was 3,000 feet, wasn't it? All right, whatever. It was a long ways. We didn't figure it out. So they were carrying the ark across the Jordan, and God said, you stay this far back. All right? Us is up there right next to the thing. Who's he think he is? And a lot of times, the reason things go wrong in our lives is because we're wrong. We're not doing something God's way. And so God intervenes. A good father corrects his children, amen? And so he intervenes and something happens and we think, who's God think he is doing this to me? But David was different. He got over that in a hurry and he said, okay, let's do this as God has ascribed it in the law. Let's move the ark. And God's blessing came upon him again. Well, I wanna encourage you to keep your accounts short. Let not the sun go down on your wrath towards God or towards anyone else. Now, by the way, don't wait till sundown. Okay, don't say, oh, good, I can be angry at this person until sundown, God said. No, that's not the point. You know, if somebody sins against you seven times in a day, the scripture says, if they come to you and say, I repent, you'd probably question their sincerity. But you're supposed to forgive them, I am too. He cared for his enemies, family. Saul and his family was almost all decimated. And in 2 Samuel 9, and by the way, if you could turn to 2 Samuel chapter 12, I'm gonna show you just two things new today. This is still old stuff. 2 Samuel 12, we'll get to that in a minute, but there was a lame member of Saul's family hiding way up north in Lodibar while David was way down south in Jerusalem. And David said, is there anybody of the house of Saul, now those were his worst enemies, that I can care for? And somebody said, yeah, there's a lame guy up in Lodibar named Mephibosheth. And David said, I want you to go get him, bring him down here, and he's going to eat meat at my table for the rest of his life, and I'm going to take care of him. Who does that? David was different. You know why? He was a man after God's own heart, that's why. And he found his worst enemies, maybe grandson, and brought him to Jerusalem and took care of him. Who does this stuff? Only men and women who have a heart after God's own heart. That's why David was different. Now a couple things yet, and I want you to notice the story here, something new. Two more things about David I think that were very different about him. And we ought to be different. We just ought to be different people. And so we study David. David has done something horrific. He's a fallen man in chapter 11. He commits adultery with a woman named Bathsheba. She ends up getting pregnant. sends for her husband, who is Uriah, who's at a battle, and says, send him back, and he hopes to kind of have him go sleep with his wife and cover it up and pretend it's his child and so on, but he refuses to. He says, I'm not going to go in and, you know, be with my wife and eat and have pleasure while my buddies are out there at the war. I'm just not going to do that. And so David says, well, the only other thing I can do is try to figure out a way to get rid of Uriah. And so he writes a letter to Joab and says, put him at the hottest part of the battle and then everybody retreat from him, leave him alone. And then Uriah dies. Okay. You all know the story. And so David thinks, There, I got away from it, and he goes and he runs and he marries Bathsheba real fast. But the last sentence in chapter 11 says this, but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. Okay? And now it's exposure time, the old saying, be sure your sin will find you out. And the prophet Nathan comes and tells a story about a guy that's got one little ewe lamb, And he loves that little ewe lamb and he holds it in his bosom and takes care of it and feeds it and washes it and everything and he just, it's just, that's all this poor little guy could do, his own one ewe lamb. And then there's this other rich guy and he's got all kinds of lamb and sheep and everything. And he has some travelers come by and he needs to feed them and he takes the one guy's little ewe lamb and slaughters that and doesn't touch any of his flocks to feed these travelers. And David really gets angry when he hears this story in verse five. And he says to Nathan, as the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die. And he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity. And Nathan said to David, thou art the man. Verse 7, and then he goes on to expose how Uriah just had this one little wife, Bathsheba, and you're the king, you're piling up all these wives and sons and riches and horses and all kinds of things, and you go and take his wife and you defile her and you have him killed. You're the man, David. You're the man. As a result, God's going to strike your child dead. And so David begins to pray and to fast and pray for the child's life. And of course, seven days later, the child dies. David confesses his sin. And God speaks through Nathan. Now, my point of the story is here, and some of you know this, something different about David. I know it's gonna sound strange, but you know what something different about David was? He didn't kill the prophet. He didn't kill the prophet. Did you ever read how many stories there are in the scriptures where a prophet came up to a king and said what you did was wrong? Okay, you're dead. Or Herod who committed adultery, took Philip's wife from her and his brother Philip's wife and got married to her and John the Baptist called him on it. said you're committing adultery said okay well gets the opportunity cut his head off and John the Baptist was beheaded that's why when Jesus was on earth he said things like this in Matthew 23 and verse number 31 wherefore you be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets Verse 37, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee. How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gather her chicks together under her wings, and you would not. Notice that there. They killed the prophets over and over. That story resonates in the Old Testament. In Luke chapter 11 and verse number 15, that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundations of the world might be required of this generation from the blood of Abel that's the first family from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias which perished between the altar and the temple verily I say unto you it shall be required of this generation So many prophets in the Old Testament were slaughtered because they went and just simply delivered the message of God. They just told the message of God, and the person in their pride got so angry at the prophet, they killed the prophet. An example may be Asa, who in 2 Chronicles 16, now he was a good king, he really started out good, but he went bad. was a train wreck at the end of his life. And God sent a prophet to rebuke him in 2 Chronicles 16, verse 7, And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. And he goes on to say, For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him. Herein, Asa, thou hast done foolishly. Therefore, from henceforth, thou shalt have wars." So what does Asa say? Does Asa say, you know, Hannah and I, you're absolutely right. Thank you. Thank you for exposing to me what I did wrong. Let me repent. Lord, forgive me. And maybe God could have rewritten history. That's not what happened. Verse 10 says, Then Asa was wroth with the seer and put him in a prison house, for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time. That's usually how prophets were treated. They're either put in prison or they were killed. But David was different. David married Bathsheba, had another son. His name was Solomon. Then he had another son by Bathsheba. You know what his name was? Nathan. He named a son after the prophet who rebuked him. That's different. That's different. Nathan said to David from henceforth, you're going to have wars. God's put away your sin, but there's going to be some consequences for it that you're going to have for the rest of your life. You know something? David lived a long time after that, and guess who was at his deathbed? When David laid on his deathbed, you know who was there? Nathan the prophet. He remained friends with Nathan the prophet right till he died. Folks, that's different. Do you like people who tell you you're wrong? Do you like hanging around them and say, I think I'll keep this guy around? Nathan was different because he was a man after God's own heart. And he said to Nathan, you know, you're right and I'm wrong. And his confession is written for us in Psalm 51. Wow. That's different than some things we see today, isn't it? I mean, sometimes a preacher says one thing from the pulpit and somebody gets offended, they walk out and never come back again. What a difference. David was different. David had insight into deeper things, too. Let me close with this. 2 Samuel 16, verses 5 through 14 is a strange story. Absalom, his son, rises up in rebellion against him and tries to take over the country. And David crosses the Brook Sea Drought. He's beginning to run through the wilderness. And this guy starts cursing and swearing at him and throwing stones at him. His name is Shimei, and he's of the family of Saul. And he's falsely accusing David. He's saying, you took the kingdom from my father Saul, and now it's payback time. Your own son Absalom's rebelled against you. And he's hurling all these false accusations at him. He's hurling curse words at him. He's hurling swear words at him. He's hurling stones at him. That's what it says. It's a really crazy story. And so here's David and he's got these military men around him and they're ducking stones and this guy's throwing stones at him. His name is Shimei, just chucking stones at him and his officers. And Abishai, remember him? You sons of Zeruiah are too hard for me, that guy. He says, let me go down there and just take his head off. Okay, this is insane. And David comes up with the craziest story. He rebukes Abishai. He says, what have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? He says, don't you understand the Lord has sent him to curse me today. Wow. And maybe the Lord will requit me good for this cursing today. What would you do if someone started flinging stones at you? Because you're a Christian or something. In closing, turn to the book of Proverbs chapter 20. David is different. Let him curse, let him swear. He says, I need this. Maybe God is in this. Maybe God's trying to humble me. God can use anybody. He can use a donkey if He wants to. Maybe God's going to look on me and have some mercy on me today, but you know what David was saying? He's saying, listen, I believe God is watching me right now to see what's in my heart, how I respond to this cursing today. There's an interesting verse in Proverbs 20 verse 27, it says this, the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord searching all the inward parts of the belly. The spirit of man is our emotions, our feelings, our attitude, our will, our thoughts at times like this. See, God allows things like this to happen in our lives, not so God will know what's in our hearts. but so we'll know what's in our hearts. And maybe when we respond when, you know, what's in our spirit when someone gives us, you know, the one finger salute or something while we're driving down the road. How do we respond right then? Maybe God lets that happen Not so he can see what's in our spirit, although he does examine that, but so we can see. In times like little things like that, we realize, hey, I guess maybe I'm not that great of a Christian. Because Christianity is not only acting spiritually, but also reacting spiritually. Not only acting biblically, but reacting biblically. when somebody curses at us or swears at us or falsely accuses us of taking Saul's kingdom. The spirit of man that is your emotions, your feelings is the candle of the Lord. It's like his flashlight. He says, okay, let me see how you respond. I'm going to let this happen to you today. I'm going to see how you respond just to see what's really in you. Then I'll know where to go from here in working on you. And I don't know about you, but I fail a lot of those tests. When something so bizarre happens to you, and at first you're thinking, what does this have to do with anything? And sometimes it has to do with everything, because God's seeing how you respond. And sometimes my responses haven't been so great, and I say, where'd that come from? Boy, was that un-Christian. You know? Or sometimes in marriage, your wife says this and you snap and then you're thinking, wow, why did I snap? What is it deep inside of me that caused such a response? God help me. And David was different because he looked at events like this in his life that way. I'm sure he was cursed many times. I'm sure he was misunderstood many times. But he always said, you know, God's watching how I respond to this. And I need to have my spirit under control and restraint. God help me. What a man. There's more you can study about David, but with these three messages, I hope you've seen some things. I've seen some things where we would just say, yikes, he sure was different. We should be like him. We should say, God, help me to respond like David. Help me to respond like Jesus and the way he responded to things. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for your word today. We pray you dismiss us now with thy blessing. Bless this Lord's day, our service tonight with the graduates. And Lord, how we thank you so much for allowing a man like David's life from his youth to his deathbed be exposed to us for study. It's so relevant, it's so human, it's so up to date. And Lord, I pray today we've examined ourselves. Maybe we find ourselves wanting in one or many of these areas and ask for the help and the power of the Holy Ghost to make us more like the Lord, make us more like David. God, you do have a heart. Help us to try to find out what's in it in this life. Now dismiss us with Thy blessing, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.